triple fail-safe

Apparently in high demand for the purpose, I’ve not only pinky-sworn into a backup marriage at 35, but also another with a different girl (assuming the first backup falls through) at 40.

Yesterday evening, asked to serve as a backup for yet another female friend, I informed her that, sadly, I was already twice taken. So, in response, she proposed we agree to wed should we both marry other people, yet have our respective future spouses both kick the proverbial bucket.

As I always say, It never hurts to have a backup. Or three. Just in case.

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February 27, 2004

archetyping

This past weekend, watching the last Sex & the City, part of me was thinking: “Thank god this thing is ending; the show’s gone so far downhill this is basically a mercy killing. And clearly Carrie’s ending up with Big. I could have called that from the first episode.” Yet, another part of me was thinking: “Thank god Carrie’s ending up with Big, because if she doesn’t, I’m utterly fucked.”

Truth be told, from that first episode, I identified with Mr. Big. Or, rather, I identified with his archetype, the broader class of Bigs who show up in film after film: Jack Nicholson’s Harry Sanborn in Something’s Gotta Give; Pierce Brosnan’s Thomas Crown in the remade Thomas Crown Affair; any of cinematic history’s laundry list of men who too late discover the same traits that made them moguls led them, in their personal life, to push people away, to end promising relationships abruptly, to bounce from fling to fling with no apparent end destination in mind, finding increasingly little joy in each.

While I may only be starting out on the route to mogul, I’m already well seasoned in ending good relationships for bad reasons. Which is why I’m always secretly thrilled by the redemptive endings Hollywood inevitably lays out for these characters. It’s an odd relief to find one somehow changing his spots, reconciling his romantic streak with his inability to actually sustain that romance. The happily ever afters let me tell myself: if that’s the path I’m heading down, at least it ends up somewhere good.

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February 26, 2004

long-term potential

Fortunately, an evening spent holding a bag of frozen broccoli to my forehead countered Monday’s headbutt melodrama, and I headed into my date last night relatively unbruised and certainly in prime form. I must admit to having been more than a bit drunk when I first met the girl, however, and so braced myself for the potential aftermath of a serious case of beer goggles.

In fact, there was no need for bracing, as my date was even more beautiful than I had remembered. In fact, she was great on all counts – smart, funny and articulate, as well as attractive. But throughout the date, a small voice in the back of my head continually objected. Some part of me, for whatever reason, knew that the relationship wouldn’t work, long term. Which, frankly, is true about the vast majority of relationships I’ve embarked upon; were I to have sat down and thought carefully about them at the get-go, I’d have known they had no possibility of going the distance.

Still, in years (or weeks) past, I’d never paid any heed to that small warning voice. Hearing it insistently last night was, frankly, a new and rather disquieting experience. Was this the first sign of impending emotional maturity? Would suddenly having a conscience weighing in keep me from wreaking my standard horribly messy trail of love life havoc?

In short, I’m not certain. So in this specific case, if she’s willing, I’d love to at least go on a second date; until I get used to listening to that little voice, I’d hate to think I killed off something potentially promising due to poor communication within my own head.

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February 11, 2004

murphy’s law

It is, of course, the evening before a rather promising first date that I manage to take a headbutt to the forehead, raising a lovely welt above my left eyebrow.

I’m both thinking I need to find a new sport, and hoping she’s into beat-up looking guys.

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February 9, 2004

betwixt and bewildered

Several months back, I spent a fair amount of time (arguably too much) thinking about the right sort of dog to get, should I decide to get a dog. As I don’t suspect I’ll be so doing at any point in the near future, that may seem an odd line of pursuit. But, to be honest, it was a question that had plagued me since moving to New York; if nearly all dog-owning New Yorkers look eerily like their dogs, was there a sort of dog that looked like me? More importantly, was I supposed to find a dog I looked like to begin with, or to find one somewhat similar and then hope it or I would evolve towards the other over time, until, perhaps, our relative appearances met in the middle, somewhere between where we both began.

Recently, however, I’ve begun to think the same rule also applies to people in relationships. Not necessarily that couples begin to look like each other (though, certainly, they sometimes do, especially if stooping to the faux pas of all faux pas: matching outfits), but that, over time, people become increasingly similar, in terms of interests, opinions and activities, to their significant others. A quick review of relationships past certainly bears the theory out at least in my own life. From swing dance to indie rock, socialist political views to dubious mental health, I’ve been swayed in all sorts of directions by girlfriends. And while some of the changes were rather temporary (leaving me, post-breakup, thinking things like: “you know, I’m much more of an indoor person than the last six months of hiking might have led me to believe.”), others have stuck with me permanently.

Which, with a handful of dates on the immediate horizon, is sort of a scary thought. Not only am I now looking for a girl I like, a girl who likes me, a girl with whom I can imagine a shared future, but also a girl who evolving towards over the course of a relationship won’t leave me scarred for life.

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February 8, 2004

buy a teddy bear

I woke up this morning thinking that, despite my complete and total lack of free time, perhaps it was time to start seriously dating again, because I’d really like someone to hold onto while I sleep. This, of course, just highlights the gap between action and intent, because in reality I’m a horrible bed sharer; I sleep wildly, tossing and turning, with a tendency to hog the blankets.

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February 2, 2004

policy change

Based on conversations with several friends, I’ve decided to start requiring letters of recommendation from potential girlfriends.

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January 28, 2004

a very bad date

Shortly after moving to the City, I went on a date with a girl I had picked up at a gallery in SoHo. Naively, I had reasonably high hopes, as it was a second date, and the first (a safe early evening drinks date) had gone remarkably well.

We went to Zocalo, a trendy Upper East Side Mexican joint, and the evening actually started off fairly smoothly. Until, that is, the waiter didn’t bring chips quickly enough. (Shock! Horror!) The girl proceeded to not only bitch out the waiter, but actually yelled at the manager as well. The manager. Over chips.

Clearly, there was no relationship potential with a girl this incredibly high maintenance. But I figured I could be mature and polite and make it through an otherwise relatively pleasant dinner. Wrong. Things went from bad to worse, as apparently a few margaritas were not a good way to calm the girl down. By the end of the evening, we were actually asked to leave the restaurant. That would be a first – I had never been thrown out of a restaurant before.

Of course, I had also never been at a restaurant with a girl who threw a plate of beans at the waiter’s face. Dating in New York is never dull.

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January 27, 2004

umm… ahh… umm….

Normally, I’m a reasonably articulate guy. Even in the presence of an exceedingly attractive girl – kryptonite for many men – I can be (at least moderately) charming, smart and funny. Yet, every so often, I meet a girl who, for whatever reason, completely confounds me. In her presence, I’m absolutely unable to complete grammatical sentences, much less to convey anything endearing through them.

When I was in ninth grade, I had a huge crush on such a girl: Steph, a tenth grader directing a play in which I was acting. And though I was (inarticulately) smitten through much of high school, I hadn’t seen her since she had graduated, some eight years back. So I was particularly surprised when, one evening just a few months ago, she materialized at the New York City house party of an (apparently mutual) friend.

Sure, previously her mere presence had turned me completely imbecilic. But I had changed and matured immensely over the intervening near-decade. Frankly, I wasn’t even sure if I was still attracted to her.

Or, at least that’s what I was saying to a group of friends as she made her way across the room. Yet, as soon as I turned to greet her, smiling confidently, what actually came out of my mouth was something along the lines of: “Are how you going?”

I write this mainly because, in the next week or two, I’ll be heading out on two dates – one with a charmingly complex bloggeress, the other with an actual Rockette – both of which threaten to similarly send me into semi-retardation. Sure, I’ll be hoping to maintain my conversational best. But this weekend, as a backup plan, I’ll also be polishing my most charming silent body language. Just in case.

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October 2, 2003